Navigate:

Climate skeptics wanted for GOP primary

John Thune told POLITICO he was agnostic about climate science. |
John Shinkle
Close

“I’ve made no secret of the fact that I think cap-and-tax could potentially be more disastrous to our economy than Obamacare because it would devastate our businesses and cripple our energy and industrial sectors," Palin wrote in a recent Facebook message.

Jeff Holmstead, who served as head of the EPA air office under President George W. Bush, said he expects a couple of GOP candidates will tack right on climate science. But he thinks the mainstream candidates – Mitt Romney, Haley Barbour and Pawlenty, for example – will attempt to keep their answers focused developing clean energy technologies, as well as the economic disadvantages of U.S. climate efforts absent significant moves from China, India and other fast-developing nations.

Text Size

-

+

reset

"I think they aren't going to need to become climate science deniers to make the points that they need to make," Holmstead said.

For instance, Barbour, the Mississippi governor, challenged climate science during his past tenure as an oil industry lobbyist and chairman of the Republican National Committee. Now, he talks economics.

"Whether you think climate change is manmade, whether you think it's inevitable, whatever your view of it is, there's things like we're doing in our state that are good economics, that are useful and they will reduce greenhouse gas emissions," he said in a recent interview, citing the manufacturing of solar panels, energy efficient windows and fuel out of wood and coal. "We're an all-of-the-above state, and I think that's prudent."

Inhofe said he'll be watching the Republicans who in the past have moderated their views.

"Huckabee has been a little bit soft on the issue," he told POLITICO. Of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Inhofe noted, "He was on the stage with Nancy Pelosi at one time. I know he'd just assume people forget that, but at that point it appeared that side was going to win."

Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, who previously focused on economics, has moved the other way. In April, he suggested a “substantial time out” on climate change.

“There’s been nothing but dubious news about the science about this for about a year,” Daniels said on C-Span. “Meanwhile we’re still left with a situation that if zealots had their way and the most extreme methods were taken by their own computer models we don’t move the world thermometer at all.”

Dan Weiss, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress Action Fund, said the eventual Republican nominee may end up painting themselves into a corner if they join the pack to attack climate science in the primaries.

"This is something aimed at the base, but as public opinion stands today, it would actually be hurtful in a general election," Weiss said.

In particular, questioning climate change might not square with key voting blocs in parts of the country where weather patterns underscore the scientific warnings. "It could be an issue that hurts Republicans in the Southwest if the drought persists," Weiss said. "It also could hurt the Republicans in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states if there continues to be extreme weather events. The same thing in Florida. A big hurricane season could hurt them."

Readers' Comments (43)

Would love to see all the facts ..true or fudged layed on the table for both sides to debate in an open forum. Will never happen because the Al Gores of the world can't handle the truth...and hide behind their lies.

Its not about warming its about getting rid of the agw religious zealots that want to ruin America like the europeans have already tried to do to themselves so all the BS wind and solar projects can be manufactured in China. lets be real, it has never been about climate or pollution, it has always been about money and control. They want to control us and take our money for no good reason. How in the world do you honeslty believe we can do anything to control the temperature of the earth? It absolutely sickens me to hear the talking heads spew this garbage. Obama promised $140 billion per year in US taxpayer money to the UN and IMF and now can't provide it because cap and tax is dead. They are bemoaning how they will replace that promised money when they spend millions to meet every few months and decry the conservatives. Now even the europeans are dropping the rediculous subsidies so panic is in the air.

Al Gore would be a good spokesman for climate change skeptics. Anything he endorses would not fly with the country. It is bad law from a very bad group of people...mostly elites who would not be effected by high gasoline prices and high heating oil prices.

whoa, it is a shame that people with some level of education don't believe that humans are causing some kind of damage to the climate and environment. we don't need science, just go to your backyard, checkout the trees, check the polar ice, the lakes in your town, air above you. after you do that, do some research back to 20 years ago and see what the weather was.

it is utterly stupid and dumb that people can understand this simple idea, that we as human due to our growth are simply over extending this planet. but i blame the leader for not framing this discussion properly. forget about the climate and the environment, lets just consider our wallet for a minute. which would you prefers, paying more money to other countries for oil. that we know we have completely run out of and will for sure run out of. do we want to pay billions to middle east, canada etc or do we want to pay it to our neighbors.

So reads the subhead below the front page link to this posting. While a fairly skillful anti-Republican slur, your subhead editor would perhaps be better served by studying the house editorial style at www.telegraph.co.uk and perhaps even reading the many articles by James Delingpole that decisively expose current global warming "science" for the pathetic fraud it is.

"It could be an issue that hurts Republicans in the Southwest if the drought persists," Weiss said. "It also could hurt the Republicans in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states if there continues to be extreme weather events. The same thing in Florida. A big hurricane season could hurt them."

Do you really think the left can get away with saying its global warming because we have one bad hurricane or dry season or because it is hot in Texas and Arizona in the summer? Duhhhh!!!!! Come on people are not that stupid. Now we know the left will try to exploit a bad year, but do you really think that will fly, given how all the data has been abused? Hopefully we are also past the days when the left can get away with saying that there is a consensus of scientists, because there is not. Agnosic is the only smart opinion on this. There is no proof that global warming is even happening let alone caused by man.

whoa, it is a shame that people with some level of education don't believe that humans are causing some kind of damage to the climate and environment. we don't need science, just go to your backyard, checkout the trees, check the polar ice, the lakes in your town, air above you. after you do that, do some research back to 20 years ago and see what the weather was.

it is utterly stupid and dumb that people can understand this simple idea, that we as human due to our growth are simply over extending this planet. but i blame the leader for not framing this discussion properly. forget about the climate and the environment, lets just consider our wallet for a minute. which would you prefers, paying more money to other countries for oil. that we know we have completely run out of and will for sure run out of. do we want to pay billions to middle east, canada etc or do we want to pay it to our neighbors.

Get some education dude! Everyone wants a clean environement, but the left is trying to initiate world marxism with their cap and trade ideas. Besides the planet is in far better shape environment wise than it was 20 years ago. Some sensible environment legislation way back when made sense, but now it is about destroying our entire economy in the name of an unproven theory. Most environmentalists are just plain nuts!! I know I am a former member of the Sierra Club. They are wacko.

Do you really think the left can get away with saying its global warming because we have one bad hurricane or dry season or because it is hot in Texas and Arizona in the summer? Duhhhh!!!!! Come on people are not that stupid. Now we know the left will try to exploit a bad year, but do you really think that will fly, given how all the data has been abused? Hopefully we are also past the days when the left can get away with saying that there is a consensus of scientists, because there is not. Agnosic is the only smart opinion on this. There is no proof that global warming is even happening let alone caused by man.

Idonotlikethe socialistmedia: Oct. 25, 2010 - 7:03 PM EST

Everyone wants a clean environement, but the left is trying to initiate world marxism with their cap and trade ideas. Besides the planet is in far better shape environment wise than it was 20 years ago. Some sensible environment legislation way back when made sense, but now it is about destroying our entire economy in the name of an unproven theory. Most environmentalists are just plain nuts!

I agree! It is just a way for a few people to make a heck of a lot of money. Gore was laughing all the way to the bank. Most of it is false science. The environment changes. The earth is moving, turning, shifting, changing and evolving everyday.

This is part and parcel of the Republican Party's dumbing down. In no other industrialized country on earth is there a major party trying to dispute the science or reality of global warming. Our government should increasingly embrace scientific findings, not stupidly disregard or fight them.

Aw c'mon, since those mile high, thousands of square miles wide Ice Age Glaciers melted and caused the formation of those troublesome Great Lakes, I have been a fierce advocate of man made global warming.

"Big Energy was out of control in 12,000 B.C. and I was there to stand firm and ride my Mastodon into the town square and yell out ..the cubes are melting, the cubes are melting" ..Chicken Little and his forefathers, (great, great, great, great, not so great and really whacked out grandfathers of Al Gore).

Climate science has been corrupted by the hundreds of billions spent to prove man is warming the earth. In 20+ years of using tree rings and computer models the only thing clear is that roughly 5% of the models have predictted the temperatures of the last 14 years. 95% cannot account for the temperatures experienced.

No matter how the programs are tweeked , no matter how data is "homogenized", "filtered" or otherwise refined to show warming these models have never been correct. Huge ranges are given in UN IPCC reports, but never have they been accurate and invariably the predictions for temperature increases have been higher than the actuals. This has not detered global warminng scientists they simply revise their data to accurately predict temperatures that have occured and make further alarming estimates.

There is simply no basis for the claim that man is warming the earth. The claim is wearing very thin as disclosures such as Climategate show the corruption involved at the highest levels of warming science. As each day passes more and more corruption is disclosed. Shying away from warming is the most honest and safest course for any politician. More and more scientists are distancing themselves from this failed theory and politicians support it at their peril. They may be scientific illiterates and not realize the failings of the theory, but we cannot allow ourselves to be led by politicians unable to listen to and understand the facts.